CDC Says Gonorrhea To Become Antibiotic Resistant

Trending News: Uh Oh. Gonorrhea Is About To Become Untreatable

Why Is This Important?

Because now's not the time to be careless.

Long Story Short

The second most common sexually transmitted infection in America, gonorrhea, is well on its way to becoming a superbug that's resistant to antibiotics. And as far as we can tell right now, there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Long Story

Sex is getting a lot scarier. From HIV to HPV to the recent threat from Zika, there's more reason than ever to wear a condom, unless you're 100% sure you and your partner have been checked. It sucks, we know (at least condoms look like they are on their way to getting better).

And now here's another big reason to wear a condom. Gonorrhea, also known as the clap, is getting stronger and stronger, and our current ways of treating it aren't working out very well.

"We think … it’s a matter of when and not if with resistance,” said lead author Robert Kirkcaldy, as quoted by The Scientific American. “This bug is so smart and can mutate so rapidly.”

Currently, we're treating gonorrhea with a combination of azithromycin and ceftriaxone, but a nationwide study found that the percentage of samples resistant to azithromycin rose from 0.6% to 2.5%, and from 0.4% to 0.8% for ceftriaxone.

Hold on, those are pretty small percentages, what's the big deal? It's just that the trend is there and we currently have no ideas for how to fight it and it could be years before a new drug is invented.

“It is low. But what we do know is that this bacteria has demonstrated the ability, repeatedly, to develop antibiotic resistance to the drugs that have been used for it,” Kirkcaldy said.

If left untreated, gonorrhea goes from a simple STD you pop a few pills to clear up in a few days to potentially life threatening. Aside from the initial pain, burning, or green/yellow discharge from the anus, uterus, throat, mouth, or penis; for guys, it can cause testicular pain and in rare cases, infertility. For women, it can cause infertility or chronic pelvic pain. The bacteria could also (and this is the really scary part) get into the blood and eventually move into the heart where it could turn out to be fatal.